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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26205802">Tinker Toy Sniper</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freezer7/pseuds/Freezer7'>Freezer7</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Spy AU [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to reluctant allies, M/M, No Immortality, Pre-Relationship, meet ugly, spy AU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:01:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,953</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26205802</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freezer7/pseuds/Freezer7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He hasn’t moved in hours. His back began aching an hour into the mission, but after five hours of barely breathing while sighting down his scope, it was positively on fire. Sweat slicks his skin and collects in the small of his back. The combined heat of the intense Maltese sun and his thick black tactical gear are unbearable. He doesn’t move.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Spy AU [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903177</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>260</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Tinker Toy Sniper</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you Beth and Keerka for betaing some of this for me! Also thank you to the discord server for helping me actually finish finish this and being around for me to bounce ideas off of. Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Valletta, Malta</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He hasn’t moved in hours. His back began aching an hour into the mission, but after five hours of barely breathing while sighting down his scope, it was positively on fire. Sweat slicks his skin and collects in the small of his back. The combined heat of the intense Maltese sun and his thick black tactical gear are unbearable. He doesn’t move.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His spotter, a bored younger agent, calls the wind speed. Half a knot faster, and shifting from south west to west. Nicolo doesn’t adjust his rifle, having already noticed the shift in conditions two minutes prior.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The small market plaza he is watching begins to empty for the day, likely in anticipation of the oncoming storm. He can feel the pressure building, the growing tension and humidity adding to his discomfort. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nicolo lets out the smallest of sighs as the last stall is closed for the day. This is the third and last day of the window his target is scheduled to be on the island, and he hasn’t frequented the market the intel had pointed to. A dead end, it seems.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His spotter must have come to the same conclusion, as he begins to pack up his kit. Nicolo remains prone, still surveying the market. Only a few people remain, the family that runs a small fresh fruit stand staying to chat with another merchant. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He is about to call it a day when he sees the curtains twitch in a window directly across the plaza from his own perch. That apartment had been listed as uninhabited on the intel. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The curtains twitch again, and Nicolo glimpses a silenced muzzle, and the vague silhouette of a man. He breathes in, holds the air in his lungs, lines up the shot, crunches the numbers and conditions, adjusts, breathes out slowly, and calmly squeezes the trigger. The rifle kicks back into his aching shoulder, and the silencer lets off a quiet phut noise. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nicolo is already working to disassemble his rifle before the shattered glass of the window across the plaza hits the street. His long fingers skillfully and efficiently work on the gun, and he’s just zipping its case shut when his spotter crumples onto him like dead weight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nicolo has just enough time to register the whistle of a bullet before it impacts the wall, going right through the space his head had just been occupying. He wrenches his sidearm from its holster at his hip, and grimaces as he shoves the body of his spotter off him and his hand comes away wet with blood and brain matter. He doesn’t let his mind linger on the gore, focusing only on the immediate situation.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He shelters against the wall, out of the target's sightline. He gives himself one second, two seconds, three, to breathe and suppress the adrenaline response, letting the weight of the gun in his hand bring him back to center. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He risks a glance out the window.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Another bullet thuds into the wall with deadly accuracy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nicolo needs to eliminate the target. He needs to get out of the building. He needs to get to the extraction site on the far end of the island. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He needs to pass in front of the window to get to the exit. There is no way around it. The window stretches from the ceiling to four inches above the floor. No way to crawl under. He sucks in a breath, secures his kit over his back, murmurs a prayer, and launches himself towards the exit.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Three shots hit the wall in quick succession, but he's through. He sprints down the stairwell, steps echoing as he descends. Thoughts fly through his head. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Run, and then wait for the target to come to him? No, too big of a chance of the target simply choosing to run. Risk trying to enter the apartment the target was holed up in?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The decision is made for Nicolo when he reaches the ground floor, and hears the fruit merchant's daughter scream. Nicolo bursts into the plaza, </span>
  <em>
    <span>stupid so stupid the target could still have a gun on you, Genova, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and the target is directly across from him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The target's white shirt is drenched red, and the little merchant's girl is screaming his name even as her parents pull her away. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yusuf! Yusuf!” the girl screams, followed by a string of choked Arabic. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nicolo stares at the man, and the man stares back. They’re frozen for a second, caught in the gravity of the moment, before it's broken by someone's shout of:</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh my god, he has a gun!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The world flies back into motion, and the target turns and books it down a sidestreet, with Nicolo sprinting after him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The target clearly knows his way around Valletta, diving and weaving through alleys and gardens far too quickly for a man with a bullet wound. Nicolo struggles to keep the man in sight, and has to rely on the shouts of alarm more than he would like to. His pack weighs him down just enough that the target is steadily gaining distance on him. He doesn’t waste the breath to curse, but he drives his boots harder against the cobbled streets. They jackrabbit their way across the city, shoving through crowds and ducking in and out of buildings and restaurants.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The storm breaks, and rains pours from the heavens. The stone streets are slick under Nicolo’s boots, and the rain makes it even harder to keep sight of the target. He is forced to slow, or else risk falling. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The target is a fair distance ahead of him when he finally spots him through the deluge, ducking into a sidestreet. Nicolo doesn’t think, follows the man around the corner at full tilt. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man has stopped, and aims a handgun directly between Nicolos eyes. They widen, and he doesn’t have time to think before he bashes the gun away from his face, and it goes off right beside his right ear. He gasps, curses and can’t hear his own words, a hand instinctively reaching up to block out the shrill ringing, doubling over. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He feels rather than hears the first crack of thunder. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The gun goes off again, and this time the bullet hits him, squarely in the left shoulder, sending him to the ground. His eyes roll back, shifting in and out of focus, he blinks furiously, pain and rainwater obscuring his vision, and his eyes clear just in time to see the barrel of a gun arcing down towards his head. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>A Safehouse Somewhere Outside of Ragusa, Sicily, Italy</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Yusuf is fuming, barely able to tolerate sitting long enough for Andy to stitch the gunshot wound in his left shoulder closed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“They know about my family now, Andy.” He repeats for the hundredth time since he burst into their hotel in Valletta. They had been the very first words out of his mouth, panicked and vulnerable. He’s moved from fear into anger, now. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’ve moved them, Yusuf. We’ve gotten them new identities, and they should be halfway across the Atlantic by now. It’s all we can do, Yusuf,” Andy responds, not for the first time. Yusuf buries his face in his hands, hissing as the motion pulls at the stitches. He yanks at his curls, cusses fluidly in Arabic. Andy snorts at him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m going after him, Andy,” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I wasn’t asking.” Yusuf stands, and only looks a little unstable on his feet. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You got shot less than twelve hours ago. Sit down,” Andy plants her hand on the center of his chest and shoves. He collapses backward into the chair, hard, crying out as his shoulder is jostled. His face is drawn in pain when he looks up at her, eyes wide and earnest. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not yet, Yusuf. Sit. Heal. Sleep.” Yusuf knows her words are final. He nods stiffly, looks away. She leaves the room.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The exhaustion of the day finally catches up with him, and he barely can stumble to the cot pushed against the wall before he’s falling asleep. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>A Hospital, Naples, Italy</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Awareness comes back to Nicolo in fits and bursts. Getting taken out of an ambulance, maybe, an injection, a flight? An operating room, briefly. The memories are fuzzy and delirious, as he drops fully into unconsciousness. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nicolo wakes in a hospital bed. His left shoulder aches only slightly, so he’s been administered painkillers. His mouth and head feel cottony, so he’s been out for at least a few hours. The room is windowless, but the lights are dim, and the hallway is hushed. Night time, then. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It is only when he has finished cataloguing the situation that he acknowledges the man sitting at his side.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I did not think I was going to be waking up again, I will admit.” his voice comes out in a rasp. The man doesn’t move to offer him water. He leans forward, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. His expression is impatient.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So, you didn’t accomplish your mission, you lost an agent, and blew your cover, starting what will undoubtedly be a very irritating international affair with the Maltese government. I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>eager </span>
  </em>
  <span>to hear your report for this.” Merrick drawls. Nicolo feels his head clear, his handler’s voice like a douse of ice water to his brain. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He relays the details of the past three days as exactly as he can recall them, quickly taking Merrick through the first two. He recalls the wind speeds and conditions easily, the numbers second nature to him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nicolo hesitates before he tells Merrick about the small girl that had screamed for the target, and almost considers glossing over it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“All I know is that the little girl knew the target's name, and was upset to see him hurt.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It's this detail that Merrick latches onto the most. He makes Nicolo go over every detail he remembers about the family, his eyes and mouth twisted into something sharklike.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He makes Nicolo run through the mission one more time before he stands, buttoning his sport coat. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Agent Keane will be taking over your assignment, and I suspect he will have more success.” Merrick sneers, before exiting the hospital room.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A nurse comes in not long after, smiling banally. She takes his vitals, checks his bandages, and fills him in as she works. He’s in Naples. He has a concussion, blown eardrum, and a nasty gunshot wound in his left shoulder. She's professional, military enough that she doesn’t enquire anything about him beyond asking him to rate his pain. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He stays in the hospital for another three days before he can convince them to discharge him. It’s another two before he’s boarding a plane back to the agency headquarters.    </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>London, The United Kingdom</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He's firmly benched to a desk when he arrives back. The stack of paperwork would intimidate the younger agents, but he sorts through it diligently. He keeps his head firmly at his desk, and doesnt let it wander to the gaggle of the youngest agents, who hold subdued conversation and glare at him accusingly every time he meets one of their gazes. His back grows stiff under the weight of their blame, resolve growing with every murmur. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The spotter's name had been Angelo. He'd been barely twenty-two. The year before, when he was only a few weeks out of training, he'd attempted to grow a beard, Nicolo remembers. It had been patchy and unattractive, but the kid had worn it proudly for the first month after his training. Nicolo knows he had been dating one of the other rookies in secret, and knows that his boyfriend blames Nicolo for Angelo’s death. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The mission in Malta had only been his third mission with Angelo, and yet the details of the young agent's life are branded into his brain.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He writes out the reports, files the paperwork. The resolve turns cold and hard as steel. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuf Al Kaysani is going to die by his hand.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It isn't wishful thinking or a hopeful promise. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It is just truth waiting to be born.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He finishes the paperwork in less then two days, and is left with very little to occupy him. His gunshot wound is closing and healing, if slowly, but he is barred from the gym and training floors. Nicolo considers going to the shooting range in one of the sublevels, but decides against risking redamaging his shoulder with recoil from a gun or rifle. He instead busies himself with reading through recent intel reports, settling into his desk chair in an attempt to achieve something near comfortable in the hard plastic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is how Agent Keane finds him, with his long legs crossed at the ankles, his shirt a soft sweater to keep out the London chill, and his reading glasses perched on his nose. Nicolo sighs as he sees the well shined, expensive leather dress shoes stop in front of his desk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"So, you get an agent killed and lose a target, and then get a paid reading vacation?" Keane says, far too loudly. Angelo's partner lets out a scoff from across the office. Nicolo stiffens ever so slightly, and looks up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keane had joined the agency in the same round of recruits as Nicolo, almost a decade ago. He had taken it upon himself to compete with Nicolo in every area, and resented him as he fell short. He'd never responded to the competition Keane had created with him, and yet it only seemed to make Keane angrier. Sharing a handler had only worsened his resentment, and Nicolo was helpless as to how to bridge a gap so many years in the making.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicolo says nothing, waits for Keane to get to his point.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I came to warn you off this target, but looking at you now," he pauses, a malicious smile stretching across his lips, "I can see that won't be necessary."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With that, Keane, marches from the office. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Your observational skills always did leave something to be desired..." Nicolo murmurs under his breath, the smallest of smiles tugging at his lips as he watches him disappear down the corridor. He looks back to the intelligence report he had been reading.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The top of the page is plastered with the face of a middle aged woman, and is dated three days old. The picture is of Ex Special Agent Andrea Smith, previously code named Andromache, now known as the Scythian. She had been American special ops, and had been transferred early in her career to the Central Intelligence Agency. Her work there was largely classified, and was vaguely largely located in and around Berlin throughout the eighties. Nicolo knew of her even outside of the context of his target, her missions had ascended to near legend, stories whispered between agency recruits during late nights. Her dramatic exit from the CIA was also well known. She'd turned against her government, been disavowed and branded a terrorist, and had been successfully on the run ever since. Yusuf Al Kaysani is her protege, and is wanted for aiding and abetting an enemy of the state.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He continues his reading, careful to be more discrete. He keeps up with all the new intel that even remotely connects to the pair, as well as going through all previous reports he'd read before the mission in Malta. He reads, and examines, and reads, and analyses, and reads some more before finally, he pieces enough together to begin the hunt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's a finance report, from a small bank in Mongolia, that had been wired money from a slightly smaller bank in Chile, that had been wired money from a bank in Prague. Nicolo had almost missed it. It connected a known alias of the Scythian to a small cottage in the Colorado mountains. The purchase was recent, barely a month old. Voila, Nicolo thinks with satisfaction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gets cleared for active duty once more, and is packing his bags to leave for the states when Merrick's private number pops up on his phone. He answers it, and doesn't have time to greet him before his handler is speaking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You have a mission. The Booker has been spotted in Nevada, just outside of Reno. A jet is waiting for you at the airfield. I've sent you the briefing to read on the flight. Be there in twenty."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The line goes dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Colorado, The United States</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuf hasn't been so stir crazy while healing since he had his top surgery. With every moment that passes, he can feel his impatience with his body rack up, inch by inch. Not even the move to Colorado, a ploy at getting as far away from Malta as possible, has helped his building tension. The cool mountain air had soothed him only momentarily. His mind can't get away from the man in Malta. He is a man of action, a man of the present. It sits bitterly that he must wait to heal before he can work on ensuring his family's safety.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Andy is exasperated with his impatience, and she finally forces him to stop pacing two days in, pushing him onto the sofa with a laptop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"If you want to be productive, focus on research. Find out who he is, who he works for, what his game is. Then we go after him." She leaves the safehouse after saying her piece, and Yusuf digs in to start gathering intel on the sniper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>During the trip to the states out of Sicily, Yusuf had sketched him. The details of the man's face came to him easily. Deep set and pale green eyes, an aquiline nose, lips with a widely bowed upper lip. Fair skin turned pink under the Maltese sun, light brown hair cropped close to his scalp. He'd filled several pages before he was sure he had gotten it correctly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He searches for the man first in the Italian agencies, remembering the man's rather fluent cursing as he had chased him through the streets of Valletta. He expands his search, going through agent profile after agent profile, until he finds the man in a very illegal database of MI5 agents.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicolo di Genova.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are a few hits and missions accredited to the name that Yusuf recognizes, and many, </span>
  <em>
    <span>many </span>
  </em>
  <span>more that he doesn't. The man is well experienced. Outside of the list beneath his name, Nicolo di Genova is nearly a ghost. Obviously Italian, but no record of citizenship. He rereads the list. It hasn't gotten any less impressive. He handwrites out notes as he works, covering their small living room floor with a web of notes and sketches. The space helps him visualize and organize. As he sorts through data, he finds more, less official missions that stink of the agent’s involvement. He loses himself in the research, so much so that he jumps when the front door opens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Andy comes in, far too many grocery bags hanging off her arms as she crosses into the kitchen. Yusuf means to keep focused on his work, but she shouts his name from the other room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gets up, groaning at the slight ache in his knees from kneeling on the floor, and the stiffness in his shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Andy grins at him as he enters the kitchen, gently lobbing him a small container. He catches it, and glares at her when his shoulder protests the fast motion. It's a frozen meal, beef and mushroom stew.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I found some stuff from that halal brand you like, there's more in the bag," she says as way of explanation, waving a hand at the pile of bags on the table. He grins at her, overtaken with affection for the woman. The nearest town was over an hour away, and he doubted the small grocery store there would carry the brand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How far did you have to drive to get these?" Yusuf asks absentmindedly as he reads the cooking instructions on the packaging.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Too far, all the way to Denver and back."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Thank you, Andy." He looks at her and smiles gratefully, kisses her cheek as he crosses to the microwave. He punches in the timer, and turns to lean against the counter. Andy mirrors him from the opposite side of the compact kitchen. She holds a box of takeout, and gestures towards him with noodle laden chopsticks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How's the research gone?" She asks around a mouthful of food. He snorts at her display before answering.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"The snipers MI5. He's been active for the last eight or so years, and was the one behind that assassination scandal in Poland back in November."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Agent Genova?" She interjects. Yusuf isn't surprised she knows the man's name, is barely ever surprised at her wealth of knowledge anymore. He nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Shit, alright." Her eyes narrow slightly, like they always do when her intelligent brain starts going. He winces at the curse. If Andy thinks he's a high risk target, then he knows to be concerned. But then again, he already had taken a bullet to attest to the agents competence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The timer on the microwave goes off, breaking both of them from their thoughts. Yusuf grabs a fork and hisses as he burns his fingers slightly on the hot dish. He sucks them into his mouth, and it's Andy's turn to laugh at him as she moves back into the living room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lets out a low whistle as she properly takes in the mess of paperwork Yusuf has turned it into. She wanders through it, not having to ask Yusuf's thought processes behind the strewn notes. She had been the one to teach him, after all. He settles himself onto the couch to eat his dinner, watching her catch up to speed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's nearly finished with his food when she makes a noise of triumph and passes him a printed out MI5 dossier. He reads through it, tries to guess where her brain is at before she explains. It's a write-up on a wanted person, for one Sebastien le Livre, also known under the alias the Booker. He had managed to elude Agent Genova five years or so back, having been running an illegal document forgery gig out of Glasgow. He looks up to Andy, and she smirks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Mr Livre is currently in Reno. He's our ticket to your agent."</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Reno, Nevada</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Andy slams the man into the alley wall outside of the casino as soon as he exits out of the side door. Yusuf watches, hands tucked in his jacket pockets. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whoa, whoa” the man lifts his hands up cautiously, words slurred. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Start talking, Booker.” Andy snaps, stepping away as she finishes patting him down for weapons. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright! Alright!” Sebastien makes a show of brushing himself off before starting to talk. Andy rolls her eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look, you want to know about di Genova, right? I told you on the phone, I don’t know much. He was the bastard to come for my operation back in Glasgow, and I got away. That’s it. The whole story.” He spreads his hands, stumbles slightly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Andy looks at Yusuf, nods towards Sebastien. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re going to be our lure to catch him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <b>48 Hours Later</b>
</p><p>
  <b>A Private Jet, Somewhere Over the Atlantic</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicolo lets a small measure of satisfaction run through him as he reads his mission briefing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sebastien le Livre, only a state away from Yusuf Al Kaysani.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two escaped birds with a single mission.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man is suspected to be in Reno, running a gambling scam in some of the numerous casinos that call the city home. Looser security than Vegas, fewer holds from other criminal enterprises as well. The man's presence was tipped off by a parking lot security camera, pointed at the right place at just the right time to catch a clear identifying photo of the man's face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The mission is a capture, the forger a low enough predicted threat that Nicolo is planning for the whole operation to take up barely half a day. His previous failure to capture the man had been a string of incredibly bad luck. He is prepared this time, with a dozen more missions and a hundred more hours of training. This mission is going to a breeze, a warm up, a pit stop on the way to tackle his true target.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He spends the long flight pouring over surveillance, satellite photos, and building plans, attempting to ensure the op would run as smoothly as possible. He forces himself from thinking of how Merrick was assigning him this mission deliberately. It wasn't a mission on his caliber, and would be suited better for a less experienced agent. It screamed of contempt, of Merrick snarling </span>
  <em>
    <span>'This is evidence of your failure, fix it.’</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The humiliation isn't lost on him. The mission had already been planned out for him, and it chafes to be treated like an agent with less than half his experience. He allows the annoyance to run through him, lets the bitterness twist in his stomach as he reads through the assigned plan over and over, committing it to memory. Arrive in Reno, wait for Booker to exit the casino he frequents on Thursday evenings, tail him to the hotel, and make his move once he has settled into his room for the night. There is more to the plan of course, fail safes and backup plans and contingencies, but boiled down it was incredibly simple.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The plane touches down in Reno late in the morning. As they descended from the air, Nicolo carefully tucked his anger at his handler away, pocketing it for later, when he could beat it out on a punching bag. For now, he wrapped the trained and practiced calm around himself, bringing himself to the cool state he performed all his missions in.  A clear head to persevere, the mantra that had been pressed into his head as a recruit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He steps off the jet and onto the tarmac. The hot Nevada sun is a blessing after the damp chill in London, and it is instantly baking through his thin jacket. He adjusts his shades and backpack, before striding to the waiting car. The driver hands him the keys, and Nicolo nods at him as he pulls open the driver-side door. The engine comes to life smoothly beneath his touch. It purrs as he drives out of the airfield and towards the downtown of Reno.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He makes it to the casino Booker is scheduled to be in with an hour to spare. He checks over his equipment for the dozenth time before settling in to wait.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The minutes tick by, and Nicolo waits with unending patience.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, as the sky just begins to explode with a colorful Nevada sunset, a man exits out the marked side door. He stumbles as he walks to his car. He wears a coat far too heavy for the climate, and has a flat cap pushed low over his face. Nicolo can only catch small details of the man's appearance, but it's enough to confirm the man as Le Livre.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pulls out into traffic after the man, making sure to follow from a few cars behind. They take the predicted route to the hotel, where the target parks in the predicted area. Nicolo remembers another mantra from his training. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Habits kill.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicolo parks his own vehicle a block away, and pulls his kit bag, this time in the shape of a laptop bag, from the trunk. He secures the sidearm in the holster at the small of his back and checks his watch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He waits ten minutes for Booker to ascend to his room before following him up. The walk inside to the elevator is easy, the receptionist giving him a bland smile as he passes. The floors ding, one, two, four, and then finally the doors slide open on the seventh floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He navigates down the hallways from memory of the layout map he had studied on the jet. Hotel hallways were so easy to become lost in, the way they twisted in on each other in an endless series of doors and interior walls. It had been part of the reason he'd originally lost Booker, the floor layout intelligence that had been supplied had been out of date.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicolo arrives in front of Booker's room number and takes a moment to breathe in, pulling on his professional detachment, before swiping the master keycard through the lock. He eases the door open, and draws his gun, and fingers the safety off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The hotel room is quiet and dark. The shades have been pulled, and the only light comes from the television. The TV is muted, and the only sound in the room is the soft noise of air exiting the vents, and Nicolos own breath. He strains his ears. Nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He clears the bedroom, boots silent on the thick carpet, before moving to nudge open the bathroom door. The bathroom also proves to be empty, and Nicolo has a moment to question if he had maybe misread the room number before there's the muzzle of a gun at his back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Don't fucking move." The words are quiet, but the voice hasn't changed since Nicolo last hunted Booker. He raises his arms slowly above his head in surrender, feels the tension in the man behind him ease ever so slightly, and swivels to slam Booker's gun arm into the wall, hard. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The gun goes off, the sound echoing loud in the small space. Someone screams in another room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicolo swings his own gun to point at the man, but before he can shoot, a fist is slamming square into his face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bathroom spins. He recovers quickly, but not quick enough to avoid being slammed through the shower glass, small shards embedding into his skin as he falls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Booker turns tail and runs, and Nicolo feels his calm slip slightly as memories of their last confrontation pull at him. He staggers to his feet, and sprints to follow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They run down the hallways, Livre unable to shake Nicolo, clearly having not familiarized himself well enough with the layout. Room doors open as they pass, curious faces turning fearful as they catch sight of the gun wielding men.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They exit the floor via the emergency stairwell, and the fire alarm starts to blare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They burst into the lobby of the hotel, and aren't out of place in the panicking crowd rushing for the doors. They hit the street, and Nicolo digs in for a long chase. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is a surprise, then, when Livre ducks a building on a quiet street with a shout of what might have been ‘bastards’. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicolo pauses outside the door, gun raised, ready to pivot and shoot, when a voice calls out from behind him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Genova!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They make eye contact from across the street, and the situation is eerie in its familiarity. Yusuf advances on him from across the street, gun raised steadily. He looks deadly, a predator closing in on its prey. Nicolo cannot remember the last time he felt so much like something hunted, and not like the hunter. He is caught in the intensity of Yusuf's attention, helpless to move for a full second.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then the truth of it comes back, and he remembers the slick feeling of brain matter and gore on his hands, the hollow feeling in his stomach as he recognized the glare of accusation on his skin, the sickly feeling of failure in his throat. His fingers tighten on his own gun, even as Yusuf shouts at him to drop it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A car squeals to a stop in front of Yusuf before Nicolo can even set down his sidearm. The driver yells something, and when it pulls off, it takes Yusuf with it, and he curses. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wailing emergency vehicles come screeching onto the street less than a heartbeat later. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sprints the block to where he had parked his car.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The phone starts to ring over the bluetooth as he opens the door. He ignores it, twists the keys in the ignition violently. The engine sputters, sputters, sputters, dies. He curses. Remote control.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The phone answers without his input, and Keane is yelling at him, and Nicolo doesn't stay to listen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He exits the car, doesn't bother to shut the door as he takes after Yusuf on foot. He sprints along the road, desperate, off his center fully now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His legs are no match for the wheels, and he knows it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ignores it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Runs harder as the car disappears from sight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn't stop until his legs give out, and he dry heaves from exertion. Sweat plasters his hair to his forehead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn't allow for the panic to set in. </span>
  <em>
    <span>A clear head, a clear head, a clear head</span>
  </em>
  <span>-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hands are shaking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His heart is racing.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Clear head, clear head-</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He needs a clear head he needs-</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>A car. He needs a car. The safehouse in Colorado. He needs a car to get to Colorado.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A car is easy enough to acquire, a quick trip into a parking garage providing a small sedan. Nicolo doesn't let himself think of anything other than getting the car hotwired. He yanks open the console, cuts through the wires, sparks them together twice. Pulls out of the garage. Takes the exit going east. Drives.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn't break. He won't break, won't stop, won't think about the consequences of the day. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He drives.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sun is beginning to rise once more and he pulls into the gravel road that will take him to the safehouse. The tires crunch loudly over the material. There will be no surprising them. He doesn't have to put aside his emotions, they're already dulled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He drives, and doesn't think about how the sweat in his palms feels achingly similar to blood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He prays.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cabin is small, and there is no car parked in front of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It could be hidden around the back, or in the dense woods in the surrounding area. Nicolo doesn't examine the naivety behind the thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He exits the car, walks to the front door, gun held loosely in hand. The doors unlocked, slightly ajar. He knocks it open. The interior is a mess, clearly having been gutted quickly. He lowers the gun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They are gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He walks through the cabin anyways.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kitchen is a mess. A thawed frozen meal sits in the microwave. Dishes sit unwashed by the sink. A dining chair lays on its side. They'd left in a rush, hadn't expected Nicolo to follow?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The living room is clean, and he moves to the bathroom. A small container of lemongrass scented conditioner. An empty contact lens fluid bottle in the trash. A syringe needle. Perhaps they'd picked up more illicit activities while on the run. Nicolo carefully pockets the needle, assuring the cap is firmly over the sharp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first bedroom is empty of anything of note.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The second bedroom is as well, until Nicolo dunks down to peer under the bed. A small notebook, barely larger than his hand, lays under the bed. Possibly it had been kicked without noticing? He lays flat on his belly on strains for it, pulling it closer until he can grab it and sit on the edge of the bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He flips the book open. The first page has a phrase of some dialect of Arabic, and the beginning of a date range, from a few weeks ago. The next page is a pencil sketch of a plant, and the next twenty or so pages are similar in style with varying subjects. He gets to more recent pages, and feels his heart beat faster as his own face stares back at him from the pages. Dozens of sketches of Nicolo.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They vary in detail and accuracy, but he recognizes himself easily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is how Keane and Merrick find him, sitting in the home of the enemy, sitting upon Yusuf Al Kaysani's bed, flipping through his sketchbook.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm suspending you." Merrick states, disbelief coloring his tone as he takes in Nicolo. Keane says nothing, just looks smug.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The trip back to London is a blur. Nicolo is distant, floating far from his body. He answers the questions Merrick asks. He boards the jet. Merrick is beyond anger. He sits through the lecture. Nods. Doesn’t hear whatever Merrick is shouting. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His mind is still on the notebook beneath the bed. The unfinished meal in the kitchen. The needle in the trash. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl screaming in the plaza. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It isn't until Nicolo reaches the London headquarters that he finally shrugs off his jacket and remembers the needle tucked into the interior pocket. He is debriefed by four separate people. First Merrick, then Keane, then two others, who make him go through the mission backwards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicolo doesn't like the suspicion on their faces.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He is sitting in a containment room, one disguised as a cozy office room. He knows better than to believe the fluffed cushions and warm paintings. He is being held, interrogated. It's then when he takes off the jacket. He has been up for over forty hours, which is not a record. Anti interrogation training for the agency had kept him up for almost seventy, but he still feels the effects of it deeply. It’s a ploy to get the full truth from him. It explains how the needle had slipped his mind, but not why he doesn’t pull it from the pocket. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He considers the shape of it through his jacket, considers the agent sitting across from him, and makes a decision.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn't mention the needle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He is dismissed after the agent finally runs out of questions, and is being run through all of the many privileges that will be stripped from him while he is suspended, when they pat him down and find the needle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Is this yours?" She holds it up for him to see, and he can feel the full force of his choices catch up to him in the moment. It hits him distantly. He is still numb.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shakes his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Al Kaysani's." He says, locking any emotion away from the surface.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods, puts it in a baggie. He is released to the street.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They tail him on his drive home. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Twenty Four Hours Later</b>
</p><p>
  <b>Back in London MI5 HQ</b>
</p><p>
  <span>James Duncan Keane is not, for all intents and purposes, a stupid man. He is a very intelligent man, cunning and sharp in the way all MI5 agents must be cunning and sharp. In his class, he had come out only second to Agent Nicolo di Genova. It had been a slap in the face, to have a runt not out of his teens show him, a transfer from the SAS, up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was used to harsh competition, to have to work harder and smarter than his peers to have any chance at securing a job.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the way Genova had passed test after test while barely seeming to struggle? That had stung, stung all the more when the kid had even offered him help, as if he had anything to teach that Keane didn't already know. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They graduated together, worked under Merrick together, and pulled off operations that shouldn't have been possible together, but Keane's anger simmered on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So in short, watching Agent di Genova crash and burn was immensely satisfying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>First the cock up in Malta, then the embarrassment of an operation in Reno, and now withholding evidence? Not to mention the sheer amount of disobedience and insubordination that seemed to characterize the man's behavior recently. Or the man's obsession with the target from Malta, the one the Keane had explicitly warned him off of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Genova thought him so much of a failure that he interfered in Keane's mission, and then had the audacity to attempt to hide evidence that could help. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, Keane is not a stupid man, and once he had the final pieces of evidence, the notebook and needle, the mystery of Yusuf Al Kaysani clicks into place. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The notebook, once he got past the startling amount of sketches of Genova, had a singular sketch of an older Hajibi woman. The face set off the memory of the family Merrick had described when he had briefed Keane on where Genova had left off. The family that Genova had originally tried to skim over in his written report.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He digs up the surveillance photos of the market, and sure enough, the woman from the sketch is present behind one of the stalls. They hadn't known what specifically had drawn Al Kaysani to the market, but Keane had the answer in the form of a sketch and an empty needle with traces of testosterone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They'd been looking for Kaysani's past under the wrong name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The research goes fast, now .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman in the sketch and photo is originally from Tunisia, had there he found a marriage license and a birth certificate. Ibrahim and Camilia Al Kaysani brought a daughter into the world, only for any mention of her to disappear nineteen years later. The family was deemed missing five years after their child.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It gives Keane just enough to begin the search for Kaysani's parents. He had his leverage.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>In a Car, Heading South Through Hidalgo, Mexico</b>
</p><p>
  <span>"Talk to me, please, Andy," Yusuf tries again. She hasn't spoken to him since they hit the Mexican border, and even then only to get them through the security.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She's tense. Her fingers haven't let off their white knuckled grip, and they are pushing ten over the speed limit. She doesn't make eye contact with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Please, Andrea."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She breaks, glances away from the road, looks back. Tenses harder, sighs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"They knew about the safehouse, Yusuf. They know about your family. They found you in Malta," she pauses, seeming to hesitate, if Yusuf didn't know her better. Andy was stone, indomitable, unrelenting. She didn't hesitate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"We need to lie low, at least for a year or so." She says it, and it leaves exactly no room for argument. Yusuf can feel the truth to her words. They can't keep running. They can't keep fighting. His shoulder is barely healed over. Andy looks exhausted, her years beginning to show in the lines in her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This Andy is so different from the Andy of almost a decade ago. The years have worn on her in ways deeper than the new creases in her skin and grey threads in her hair, Yusuf knows. She is scared, and that frightens Yusuf more than anything else could. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Andy of ten years ago would have rallied, cocked her gun and smirked as bullets rained down upon them. She had felt untouchable, a goddess among men, but that was when Quynh had still been with them. Yusuf can feel her absence in their lives like a tangible thing. The world had felt like it had been at the tips of his fingers, those days. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Andy seems to sense his further dive in mood, and turns up the staticky radio. It’s in spanish, of course, and Yusuf doesn’t recognize the melody. Andy hums to it regardless, off-key and a second behind the song. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiles at him from the driver's seat, a strained, exhausted thing, and Yusuf’s heart burns with it. The exhaustion catches up with him in that moment, and he has to blink away tears. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He bundles up his jacket against the door, and settles against the window, lulled into a light sleep by Andy’s humming and the rattle of the engine. </span>
</p><p>
  <b>A Cemetery, London</b>
</p><p>
  <span>They bury Angelo on a rare sunny afternoon. They hadn't invited Nicolo, but he came anyway. He watches the affair from a distance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There's a large crowd gathered for it. He knows the casket is closed, the young man having supposedly died in a horrific car crash.He waits as the crowd begins to disperse. A man stays behind, lingering over the fresh dirt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicolo walks to him, adjusts his jackets over the holster at the small of his back, pauses just out of reach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Why did you come." The words are clipped. Angelo's partner doesn't turn to face him, stares at the grave. Barely twenty two. Too young.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm going after Kaysani. I..." the words feel stiff on Nicolo's tongue, "I'm sorry."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other man doesn't respond, and Nicolo moves to walk away when he finally looks up. His face is a mask of anger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Keane found his family. Mexico City."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Kill him."</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Mexico City, Mexico</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicolo takes a passenger plane under a false identity and touches down in Mexico City less than twenty four hours later. The city bustles, warm and alive. He feels cold, a bitter contrast to the city. A dead thing walking. He takes a taxi to the cheap hotel he pays for with cash. He is paying by the hour. He sits, opens the laptop he had kept a secret from the agency. Most agents had something similar. You don't work for the agency without having a plan to leave it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He taps into the agency database, the administrative site where affairs are catalogued and run from. He always thought it was a bad idea, to keep such sensitive information available as ops were being run, but he is thankful for it now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He navigates to Keanes file. He is enroute, aboard a private jet. He had left after Nicolo, and the jet serial number is one that Nicolo recognizes as being reserved for large scale ops, where the military was brought in quietly to provide extra force. The address for the op is marked in coordinates, and Nicolo only takes a moment to type them in and locate the specific building.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's a family home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Three bedrooms, two baths. Massively expensive for the area it's in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had expected a cheap hostel, maybe even an abandoned building.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He remembers the small girl from Malta.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thinks about it. Considers the previous ops he'd been on with Keane. Remembers them being full of loud explosives and guns and with no subtly or light touch. Keane was special ops, SAS through and through. He was bringing soldiers to a home with a small child, and an aging couple.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They weren't after the family. They had nothing to do with Al Kaysani’s or Andrea’s crimes. They were likely trying to put their lives back together after seeing their family member bleeding and running from a man with a gun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girls screams for Yusuf replay in his mind's eye, over and over, hoarse and raw and desperate and terrified. Tears prick at his eyes. He can't be cold to this, professional. Not this one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He makes a decision.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gets up from where he had been sitting on his bed, and walks out the hotel door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His gun sits left behind on the mattress.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>A Few Miles Away</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Andy flicks aside the curtain, watching the street warily. Yusuf's mother is crying in Yusuf's arms, and his father has them both tucked beneath his chin. Safiyyah is clutching Yusuf's side, and has her head buried in his shirt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuf is crying with her, and they're all speaking too fast in Tunisian arabic for Andy to understand them. She catches a few words here and there, "safe" and "scared" and "stay" and she stops listening, slides her attention back to the street.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They aren't planning on staying in Mexico, stopping just to get the Al Kaysanis new names and paperwork before sending them to another obscure place on the globe. Andy hates to move them again so soon, to uproot Safiyyah just as she had begun to settle. She can see how it hurts them, hurts Yusuf. They don't blame her, but the fault lies with her regardless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was Yusuf's association with her that had done this to the family. Andy had damned him as much as she had saved him. They don't talk about it. Too late to fix what she had done, now all that was left was to try to live with it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The street is crowded with early morning traffic. Andy had dumped the car a few miles away, left it in a small parking lot. Their names weren't attached to it, but with how the last few weeks had gone, she didn't want to risk anything. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Someone joins her eventually. She glances away from the window, and Ibrahim smiles at her. His face is an older version of Yusuf's, and Andy knows that it pleases both of them to look so similar. She gives a smile back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Thank you, for bringing my son back to me. For doing this for our family." He says, and his voice is so grateful that Andy hates herself. She opens her mouth to say that if it wasn't for her, they could still be living happily in Tunisia, but there's a knock at the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They all freeze, and Andy and Yusuf have their sidearms out in less than a second. Andy nods towards his family, who have clustered together, faces gone tight with fear. Yusuf nods, moves to cover and move them further into the home. Andy turns to the door, walks lightly to the side of it. There's a figure visible, distorted, through the stained glass of the center in the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The person knocks again, louder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Andy gingerly opens the door before they can knock a third time, gun raised, safety off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's the agent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn't register more than that before she has him pinned against the ground, the door shut firmly behind them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn't struggle, and he is unarmed when Andy pats him down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What the fuck are you doing here?" She growls, still with her gun trained on him,  a knee pushed against his throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tries to say something, but it comes out as a gasp of air. She eases the pressure off the mans throat, and he tries again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"They're coming for the family. Soldiers, at least a dozen. You have to move."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She curses, calls Yusuf back into the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He comes back, and Safiyyah is held firmly against his side, tucked above his hip like a limpet. She's sucking her thumb, a habit that Andy distantly recalled her having kicked a few months ago. She curses again, quieter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rage twists Yusuf's face as soon as he recognizes Genova for who he is. He turns, shields Safiyyah from view, turns his anger towards Andy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Why is he not dead?" He asks, words spoken in clipped Russian, a language Safiyyah has yet to learn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He came to warn us. There are more coming, Yusuf. We need to leave." She responds, brisk. He can be angry later, when they have time and space to work it out. She watches him stifle his temper, smothering it away. He had always struggled with compartmentalizing. He kneels, sets Safiyyah down, whispers something and kisses the top of her head. Her face is tear streaked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The agent, who had kept quiet through the exchange, speaks up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You need to leave quickly, they will have landed by now," he speaks it in Russian, following their cue. Yusuf's temper flares again at being reminded of the man.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I should kill you where you lay," he snarls from where he kneels with Safiyyah. He presses another kiss to Safiyyahs head in an obvious attempt at calming himself, and his parents come back into the main room, backpacks hanging from their shoulders, hands clasped. They pull Safiyyah to them, and nod at Yusuf. They are ready to go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Andy, Yusuf, and the agent realize it at the same moment, going still.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The early morning traffic has gone quiet. No cars or pedestrians pass by on the street. It's quiet, the space between the flash of lightning and the boom of the thunder, the sky and earth holding their breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"They're coming," Genova breaths.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Andy is on her feet, and Yusuf is getting his family towards the garage and the agent gets to his feet too, covering the door even while unarmed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Andy follows them to the car, and Yusuf gets them situated, closes their doors.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Take them. Get them out of the city." He doesn't meet her eyes, checks his gun instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm not leaving you here."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes, you are. Get my family out, Andy."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yusuf, I'm not-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Please." And he looks at her, and Andy wishes he hadn't. She feels her heart break against his resolve. He is so grown, and though she could never be called maternal, she almost doesn't recognize the boy she had saved from the authorities in the man that stands before her. She nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"The safehouse in Peru. Be there." She grabs the back of his neck, rests their forehead together. Breathes in his scent. Squeezes his neck, lets go. Gets in the car.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She floors it as she hits the street, and Safiyyah screams.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Back in the House, Mexico City</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuf goes back into the house before Andy even pulls out. She will get his family out. He trusts her with them, trusts them with her more than he trusts himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The agent is still standing at the door where they left him. He tenses as Yusuf enters the room, moves to face him</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"We need to go, too." He says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No. I need to buy Andy time. You can leave, but I'm staying." He steels himself on the other side of the door, gun clutched. He tucks in to wait, straining his ears to hear for any sound from up the street. Nothing yet, just the sound of Andy peeling away with his family. His heart unclenches slightly. She'll get them out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Its suicide to stay here." The agent says, but doesn't move to leave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I need to keep them safe." He responds. The agent sighs, nods, and proffers his hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuf stares at him. He wiggles his fingers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Gun?" Yusuf keeps staring at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You tried to kill my family, you tried to kill me. And you are asking me to give you a weapon? When your own people coming to kill me, and my family?" He asks, disbelieving at the man's boldness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I... Yes." The man's face pinches. Yusuf can't believe his own idiocy, even as he hands the man the spare sidearm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They wait. It is only seconds before boots crunch softly up the gravel walkway, but it feels like an eternity before they reach the door. They wait, soft teps and breath the only noise, before a thunk comes from outside and one of the windows is shattering, and a gas canister is clattering and hissing on the floor. Yusuf coughs, pulling his shirt to his mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The door bursts inward, falling from its hinges.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Men clad in black sweep inside, and it's the agent that takes the first shot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuf takes the next.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The soldiers, and they are soldiers, too many and too inexperienced to be agents, shout, try to exit. Yusuf realizes then, that they hadn't been expecting to face resistance. They had been expecting to face a woman and child, an aging father. The rage he had kept tucked away is released violently.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The men regain their senses, raise their guns, return fire. The gas in the front rooms curls upwards, filling the room, and Yusuf's eyes and lungs begin to burn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There's a hand on his shoulder, and he almost shoots Genova before he tugs him further back into the house, area from the direct line of fire and smoke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They take opposite rooms on either side of the hallway, wait.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The soldiers shout something and they're coming back slowly, clearing rooms. Yusuf makes eye contact with Genova. He is sagging against his door frame, and Yusuf doesn't have time to take in much more than take because the soldiers have reached their doors.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His first bullet catches someone's head, the next embeds in someone's gut, the next flying home to an eye.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn't think, lets the flow of the firefight ride over him. Shoot, cover, shoot, cover, wait, shoot, cover, reload.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His heart pounds, and he can't hear anything over the sounds of it beating against his ribs, over the sound of his gun going off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then there truly is nothing but the sound of his heart and breath. He sneaks a look into the hall. Clear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns to where Genova had been covering, and the man is doubled over, panting. He looks up Yusuf, and his face shutters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"We need to leave. Keane will have brought back up." The agent says it mostly to himself. He shoves himself up from where he had been leaning, and he walks to the ruined front door, stepping over bodies without so much as a glance. Yusuf feels his heart ache at the carnage, regretting their deaths even as he feels relieved. The smoke has largely dissipated, and he pauses in the front room to tug his pack onto his back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Genova walks briskly across the street, breaks the window of the SUV parked there, climbs into the driver's seat. Yusuf follows, climbs into the passenger side. The agent looks at him, and his face is almost surprised. He recovers quickly, though, and they are pulling onto the street less than a minute later.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>A Few Blocks Away, In A Special Ops Van</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Keane watches, and feels a mixture of anger and satisfaction as Nicolo di Genova ruins yet another mission. More than ruins, actively prevents the operation from occurring. Merrick stands beside him, and is aghast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keane isn't surprised.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Genova and Kaysani have obviously been in cahoots. It's the only explanation, really. The sketches in the journal, the with-holding of key intel… </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Merrick comes to the same conclusion, and calls back to the HQ, to his own supervisor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Disavow Nicolo di Genova. He is, as of now, aiding and abetting the known terrorist, Andrea Smith."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keane smiles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not only warning the targets before the mission, but actively helping them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All of the men he sends into the house die, and it shouldn’t have been possible for the two men to exit the building less than a minute after the comms had gone quiet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Merrick slams his hand down against the wall with a scream, and the van goes still. Merrick turns slowly, runs a hand down his face. Looks at Keane, snarls when he finds him still standing beside him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Get him!"</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Back in the SUV</b>
</p><p>
  <span>The stupid thing is, Yusuf actually thinks they're in the clear, after they leave the house. It's why he gives his brain finally enough rein to remember that he is sharing a vehicle with a man who tried to kill his family. The anger begins to lick fire through his blood once more. He turns in his seat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Are you doing this so you can kill my family yourself?" His voice is cold even to his own ears. The agent behind the wheel doesn't splutter, but he does glance away from the road to look at yusuf.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I just saved your family. I just saved you." He doesn't sound confused, doesn't sound like much of anything. He sounds emotionless. Detached. Yusuf's blood boils hotter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You shot me! You were going to shoot my family!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I was never after your family, Kaysani"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You had a gun on my sister!" He snarls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I was looking for you! We had no idea you were there to meet your family."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Then how the fuck did your friend," he spits the last word, "find us just now?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It is a very long story, and one I don't think is suited for having while currently driving away from the site of a mass murder."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No, I want answers, Genova!" Yusuf slams his hand against the dash.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How do I know that you aren't just driving back to your handler to turn me in?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Because, I do not know if you noticed, I just killed an entire unit of soldiers." The man finally breaks, irritation peaking through, turns to glare back at Yusuf. "I've likely got a higher price on my head then you do-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And the car is breaking around them, twisting in, tumbling, Yusuf slams into the dash, his seat belt cutting into his skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Metal is screaming under the pressure, the tires are screaming against the road and then-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They go weightless, and then gravity is slamming back into existence. They tumble.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The car stops on its top, and it's quiet except for the hiss of the engine.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Just Outside The Car</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Keane draws his gun as he approaches the wrecked cars. One is unoccupied, Keane having sent it colliding into Genova's vehicle remotely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other car, the SUV, lays on its top. The rear driver side is crumpled. The engine is smoking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Glass crunches beneath his boots. He crouches down to look through the wrecked passenger side door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kaysani is slumped half out of his upside down seat, blood dripping and collecting into a small pool beneath his head. Keane presses two fingers against the man's limp wrist. Still alive, just unconscious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Genova, who had been in driving, Keane knows he had been, is absent from his seat. Keane frowns.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stands back up, straightens to look to see if the now ex agent had been thrown from the vehicle somewhere in the crash.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before he can look for long, an arm is clenching around his throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Genova growling in his ear, tightens his chokehold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Leave, or you will force my hand." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keane nods, gasps as the pressure on his throat lets up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The gun that had been pressed into the small of his back falls away, and Genova shoves him forward. Keane holds his hands up, back away. Genova keeps the gun trained on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Genova's face is streaked with blood. His teeth are coated with it. Keane thinks he looks the part of the fallen angel, betrayer and exile. Deadly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keane sends the signal, taps his thumb to his palm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A single shot cracks through the air, and Genova hits the pavement with a cry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keane smiles. Not a fallen angel after all. Just a rabid dog to be put down.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>In The Car</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuf jerks back to the waking world as the gunshot goes off. He scrambles for his gun, realizes he is hanging from his seat, violently yanks the belt from the clasp. The floor slams up to meet him, and he gasps as his shoulder is jostled. Something is wrong with his right shoulder, the joint refusing to move properly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He snarls with the pain, and finally his fingers close around his gun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Genova isn't in the car.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The street is quiet, no emergency vehicles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is no accident.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuf pulls himself into a crouch, forcing himself to grip his gun with both hands. A man is talking lowly from outside the wrecked car, another is breathing hard, too hard, panting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuf has a moment, a moment where he considers sneaking out through the back of the SUV, and running.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>An awful crack and a pained sound.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuf steels himself and looks outside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A man stands above Genova, gun held casually in one hand, his other hand just letting go of Genova's awkwardly bent arm. A knife clatters to the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Not so perfect after all."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Did you really think you could choose a terrorist over the agency without consequences?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Truly Nicolo di Genova, you are a stupider man than I had thought possible."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The shoes turn then, and the man is walking to the SUV. Yusuf steels himself. Waits. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He makes eye contact with Genova then. It is unlike all the previous times their eyes had met throughout the past weeks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyes are desperate, his face twisted in pain. His desperation is not for himself. He jerks his head ever so slightly, gesturing for Yusuf to leave, save himself. Yusuf curses the man for his kindness. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man saunters, it's the only word for it, to the passengers side door, crumpled as it is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hasn't heard Yusuf's fall from his seat, too absorbed in his apparent victory and rivalry with Genova.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuf puts a bullet in his knee.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man drops to the ground, yells as his knee no longer supports him. Yusuf feels a twisted satisfaction. This was the man who had sent soldiers for his family, had planned on gassing them, involving them in the firefight between Andy, Yusuf, and the state.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He keeps his gun raised and aimed at the man as he exits the wreck. He kicks the guns away from where the agent had dropped it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He keeps aiming at the man even as he walks to check on the ex agent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Genova is shouting then, and Yusuf doesn't have time to react before he's on the ground too. The sound of the gun doesn't even register. His ears ring.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can't feel his lower left side, and his shirt is damp with something too sticky to be sweat, and then Genova is there, and there are more gunshots.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Someone, Genova, Yusuf recognizes the hand fisted in his shirt then, pulls him and he follows, limbs barely seeming to be under his control.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His head feels light, and the gunshots fade out, whether they have stopped seems less important than the fog currently wrapping around his thoughts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks down at his hands and is distantly concerned to find them bloody. His chin is yanked up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Genova is pinning him with a look, steely icy green eyes boring into his. He is shaking, or maybe Yusuf is shaking, or maybe it doesn't matter because the agent is pressing something against his side and he is in agony, but the man is saying something and it seems important.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Kaysani, put pressure on your fucking wound." And oh, Yusuf remembers that that's something he should be doing. He moves his hands, and they move so slow, Why are they so slow? To his side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His fingers are numb, when did his fingers go numb?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then the agent is pulling him upright, and there's wailing coming from somewhere, aching in his ears and it's getting closer and louder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The agent is setting him into a car, and they are driving, and Yusuf sighs, resting his heavy head against the window. His eyes close, and then Genova is pulling him from the vehicle and they are stumbling forward on foot once more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Time gets fuzzy, slippery and impossible to grasp, and Yusuf thinks he must have blacked out, because he is waking up in a dark room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The panic flares as he remembers the crash, the fight, the gunshot. He scrambles at his side, and finds a clean bandage wrapped around his middle. He sighs in relief, remembers that Genova had been with him, goes stiff again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sits up, groans with the effort. The room is a hotel room, a cheap one. The shades have been pulled, but light seeps from beneath them. There's only one bed, and the room is empty aside from a chair wedged under the door and a scattered open bag on the floor. There’s another door, and the door is ajar. Bathroom?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A muffled shout comes from the room, and Yusuf shoves himself unsteadily to his feet. His head spins as he stands, but he steadies himself on the nightstand before shuffling to the bathroom.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Genova is sat in the tub, bloodied gauze spread around him like macab confetti. He's pantless, and has a pair of forceps dug into a bullet wound in his upper thigh. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A moment later, a bullet falls into the tub floor with a small klink.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Genova breathes for long moments, resting his head back against the wall, exposing the long line of his neck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"In all of my wildest theories of how death would finally come for me, I did not imagine putting everything on the line for the safety and well being of a terrorists accomplice." Genova rasps, rolling his head slightly to meet Yusuf's eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Andy isn't a terrorist." He says simply. He moves off the doorframe where he'd been leaning and lowers himself to sit on the edge of the tub.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"All terrorists think that they are just in their actions." Genova responds, but there's no heat in his voice. Sweat and blood alike make his skin shine under the weak bathroom light. A bag sits outside the tub, and Yusuf rummages through it, coming up with supplies for suturing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"May I?" Yusuf gestures to the bullet wound in the man's leg, still oozing blood. The man nods, resumes leaning his head back against the wall with his eyes shut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He works quickly, years of sewing Andy back together after her exploits making his stitches orderly. He cleans the area, urges Genova's leg to bend upwards so he can wrap it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finishes, and remains seated on the lip of the tub. Genova cracks open his eyes slightly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Andy wasn't responsible for the London bombing. Another agent set her up to take the fall for it. She'd figured out the agent was playing both sides for cash. The agent needed to pin it. She isn't a terrorist." Yusuf says, his voice like steel, staring Genova down, daring him to argue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"A bold claim," Genova grunts as he struggles to get more vertical. "Tell me, how long did it take her to convince you of her innocence?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I don't feel the need to explain myself to a man who was going to shoot a five year old." Yusuf snarls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I would </span>
  <em>
    <span>never</span>
  </em>
  <span>." Genova is suddenly angry, indignation flashing across his face. They glare at each other. "Do you know the name of the agent you killed in Malta? Of the man, of the boy's life you took?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"His name was Angelo Diaz. He was twenty-two. He grew up in Spain, but moved to London for sixth form." Yusuf interrupts. "You had a rifle on my mother, my father, </span>
  <em>
    <span>my sister</span>
  </em>
  <span>. I will not pretend to regret the actions I took to protect my family."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They fall silent again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Who?" Genova asks. Yusuf frowns, and he clarifies, "Who framed Andrea?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Steven Merrick."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Genova looks at him for a long moment, and then rubs his face, laughs, swears in Italian. Looks back at Yusuf, and his face drops. He swears more seriously.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"If Andrea knew this, why has she not come forward with it?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Who would believe her? Who would she tell?" Yusuf snaps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I believe you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuf feels disbelief color his face. He doesn't have time to enquire as to why, of all things, that got Genova to believe him, because the man struggles to stand up and get out of the bloody tub, and is talking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Merrick is, or was I suppose, my handler at the agency." He limps out of the bathroom, and Yusuf follows. His arm is held stiff, and Yusuf realizes he must have relocated his shoulder while he was still unconscious. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He's been working on hunting the Scythian for as long as I've been with the agency. I had always assumed it was a matter of patriotism," Genova says with a bark of laughter, "but I see now it has been an attempt at </span>
  <em>
    <span>fixing his mistakes</span>
  </em>
  <span>."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He isn't going to stop. He knows who you are, he knows who your family is."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stops, starts to pull on a pair of black pants, swearing as the motion must aggravate his thigh and shoulder. He collapses onto the foot of the bed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I am normally much more professional, I apologize." He offers his hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"My name is Nicolo di Genova."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yusuf Al Kaysani." Yusuf takes the offered hand, still disbelieving. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's very nice to meet you, Yusuf." Nicolo says, and his lips quirk upwards ever so slightly, “I look forward to working with you.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>To be continued...<br/>Find me on tumblr at theodoresart. Comments make me the happiest author alive!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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